


Unlooked-for Rescue

by PheadreofWynter



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Aggressive Hawke, Crazy Hawke, F/M, Horses, Kidnapping, Minor Fenris/Hawke, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 17:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PheadreofWynter/pseuds/PheadreofWynter
Summary: Fenris sleeps with Isabela, gets caught out by Hawke and takes off.  He is captured by slavers in the employ of Denarius.  Hawke meanwhile is turning the world upside down to find the only person she's ever loved.**note, there is some rather graphic violence, in case you missed the warning tag I wanted to make that clear :)**takes place in between act 2 and 3, after the relationship with Fenris starts but before Alone.Bioware owns all.





	

He landed poorly when one of the slavers pushed him, twisting a knee but managing to stay silent. His thoughts slow and thick with despair he listened to them breaking camp. It wasn’t a large group, but when you were alone, (alone his mind howled) even twelve was too many. He had forgotten many things in his two years in Kirkwall, like what fighting with no one backing you up was like, and it had been his undoing almost immediately. Had it only been ten days since he’d left the city? It felt like a lifetime. Or maybe it felt more like he’d only dreamed his time there, like he’d gotten a blow to the head and imagined it all while he traveled with these slavers back towards the life he’d always known. His hands were bound, his feet wrapped in chain that left him enough room to walk, if difficultly. These men were efficient, and sensible enough of their prize’s “condition” that they made sure he drank and even fed him a couple of times now. He’d been with them for three days. 

When he’d stumbled across the slave pen he’d been unable to help himself. It had been guarded by three men, so he thought it was going to work out. He’d killed the men and was mostly through getting shackles off the waifs when the bulk of the gang showed up. He’d fought, hard, with desperation augmenting his effort, but there had been twenty or so and for every one he killed there was another to land a blow against him. Now they were twelve, and though some of the men had argued for killing him outright the leader was practical, and so they were making the trek toward the coast for a rendezvous where he would be given over to a ship headed for Minrathos, for Denarius. It seemed his Master hadn’t given up after all, and, though he had decided a full assault on Kirkwall wouldn’t be wise he had not been idle in the time Fenris was away. The bandit leader told Fenris that his description and reward offer had been circulated often, on the odd chance some opportunity would arise to take him outside the city.

They expected he would try to escape, and so they guarded him carefully, never less than three awake at all times. If he had been in any condition to notice he might have been flattered. Unarmed, unarmored, bound hand and foot they were all still terrified of him. His reputation had also been making the rounds along with his reward price. As it was, after his initial defeat, once the chains snapped home on his feet he had lost all hope and with it the will to resist. It was inevitable after all. Hadn’t he always known that? Didn’t he deserve exactly what was happening to him considering what he’d done? But his mind shied away from thinking about it. The thought of Kirkwall was painful, of his friends torture, and any time he came close to thinking about Hawke directly the white bolt of agony was enough to make him involuntarily reel back into himself, away from any thought at all. The sun was down now, and three quarters of the camp was sleeping. He allowed himself to curl over on his side in the dirt, letting the careful darkness in his mind pull him under.

The next day the leader told them that the coast was only about six hours away, and they wasted little time in striking the camp and packing their gear. He was roughly pushed into a middle position as the thugs formed a loose diamond formation for the walk. His shoulders and arms ached from the strain of the bindings. He kept trying to squeeze and release the muscles to try and get some relief. They had walked only a few hundred feet when there was a distinct, fast clop clop of hooves pounding the earth somewhere behind on the road. A horse? It was unusual though not unheard of for mounted parties to travel this road, mostly likely it was part of some personal guard or a mounted troupe that worked caravans. 

The little party shuffled off to the side of the dirt road, leaving plenty of room. Most of the slavers had stopped and were looking back down the road with something like curiosity mixed with faint suspicion. It was probably nothing for them to worry about after all, but slaving was technically illegal in the Free Marches and if it was part of the Kirkwall guard there might be trouble. Likely as not a few well placed coins would end it before it began but it never hurt to be careful. So weapons, while not drawn, were loosened subtly and fingered as they watched down the road. Fenris did not turn to look. He did not care who it was. He waited, patient, mind blank as he inspected the dust of the road before him.

“Andrastae’s Knickers, Greg, what the hell is that?” A short, snub nosed thug asked poking his neighbor.

“It’s a woman George, don’t be an idiot, can’t you see her hair?”

“Yeah, I mean, yeah okay, but, what in hell is a woman doing out here by herself? And where is she blighting going all hell for leather like that?”

The leader stepped back over to get a better look, a cruel smile breaking out on his face, “Don’t know boys but it’s gonna cost her, isn’t it?” He glanced around at his fellows. They grinned back at him and broke formation to spread themselves out across the road. Twelve of them and one of her, it was going to make a nice little bonus to selling off the Elf to have a woman to hand over, and if she was ugly why, they could just use her for a little celebration instead. Jonas loved win-win situations. It was a piece of extremely bad luck for Jonas that in moving his men to block the road he had inadvertently given the mounted rider a clear line of sight to the white haired Elf.

*************************************

There he was, oh Maker THERE HE WAS! As her eyes clamped on to the shock of white hair to the side of the road she was unaware that a low hum instantly sprang up in her chest. She couldn’t breathe for a second, the dizzying relief almost knocking her off the horse. Instead she put her heels to the roan’s sides, leaning down on his neck to streamline herself against the wind. Her friends were somewhere behind her, none of them were nearly as good a rider as she was, and she hadn’t been able to wait for them. Not with the blind panic thrumming through her bones every second she failed to find him. She would not lose another one of her own, she would not, and she would stop for nothing until she knew he was safe. 

The humming in her chest had risen to her open mouth to become a keening noise that was raising in both pitch and volume. She was aware, all at once, of the men ranged across the road. Her vision went red with anger so virulent it was almost black, and the keening rose still further to become a shriek of rage that went on and on as she raced at them with all the speed in her noble beast’s legs.  
Fenris heard something. It wasn’t really that he only heard it so much that he felt it, a noise that thummed against his bones and vibrated his chest. Uncomprehending he began to turn.  
Jonas had his hands clamped involuntarily to his ears, Mother of Flames, that NOISE! She was racing at them, with some kind of suicidal glee and shrieking like a banshee. One of his eardrums burst with a wet pop and an explosion of pain. He dropped to one knee, and he wasn’t the only one.

Fenris turned as the shrieking noise reached a crescendo of painful fury, his eyes unbelieving. It was Hawke, it was Hawke and she was screaming like her namesake in a killing dive. She was ten feet away and her body broke out in a sheath of lightning that seared his eyes before leaping forward to slam into the leader of his captors, then spreading out in arcing chains to engulf all twelve men. The horse reared, adding it’s screams to her own. His knees went out from under him and he kneeled in the dirt as her fury poured forth in a river of cracking blue-white and silver. It seemed to go on and on and she just kept screaming as the horse did it’s damnedest to throw her off and the bodies of the slavers hung in mid air and jerked and crackled and smoked.

“Hawke!” came Varric’s voice. Fenris stared past the shrieking mage before him to see Varric, Aveline and Merril pounding down the road toward them. “Hawke stop!” Varric yelled again, and drove his horse harder. Fenris had time to register how completely ridiculous the dwarf looked on the huge animal as the group crashed to a halt behind her. He was going mad surely. Perhaps on of the slavers had hit him in the night and he was now having some sort of bizarre fantasy as they dragged him toward the coast. 

“HAWKE!” Aveline’s voice was as sharp as a knife and Hawke visibly jerked. The lightening snapped off, and the charred lumps of blackened cooked meat that used to be slavers thumped to the ground. They cracked and oozed juices into the dirt. Merrill and Varric looked sick. Aveline had eyes only for Hawke. She had deftly regained control of her panicked mount and was sliding off it even has Fenris’s eyes found her again. Barely hitting the ground she raced to his side and was touching him, running her hands over him, through his hair, across his cheeks, his jaw, down his shoulders.

He blinked at her, shocked, breath tangled in his chest. She slipped around behind him and made a growling noise as she cut the bindings from his hands before returning to his front. By now the others were off their horses and approaching, trying not to look at the lumps of what had been men minutes ago. Hawke was murmuring, trailed her fingers over his back, his sides, he realized she was whispering anatomy as she did so, “ribs, okay, forearms okay, two fingers broken,” her eyes looked glazed and as she stooped like she would run her hands over his lower body he made a strangled noise of protest and tried to back up. The chains on his ankles hampered him and he fell, now laying full out on his back in the dirt.

“Hawke, he’s okay,” Aveline grabbed her arms from behind gently when Hawke appeared ready to leap after his legs. “He’s okay. You’re okay aren’t you Fenris?” she goaded him, trying to soothe the wildness radiating from the mage.

“Yes,” he finally got enough air into his constricted chest to form words. It hurt, there was something beyond tightness choking the muscles he used to breathe and talk, but he did it. “I am all right. I am okay Hawke.” Hawke’s eyes met his, he stared into a sea of madness for a moment, and then the glazing cleared a little and she stopped fighting Aveline’s gentle hold. She ran her eyes over him once, twice, like she couldn’t quite believe it and then sighing out a long breath she folded onto her knees like a deflating balloon.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Varric said with a grin as soon as the chance of Hawke exploding into a fresh cyclone of death seemed to be avoided. He sauntered up to the elf and offered his hand to help him sit up, then bent to undo the lock at his ankle. 

“Oh Fenris! We were all so worried!” Merrill was bouncing up and down with her excitement. The chains fell away from him with a twitch of the dwarf’s fingers, and he got up and bowed with a flourish. “Elf, you are almost as much a trouble magnet as Hawke here. How did you manage to run for three years and then get swiped in less than two weeks!?”

Fenris colored at that, “Out of practice apparently,” He snapped. His relief was enormous, it was a giddy thing bubbling through his whole body. He knew as soon as the shock wore off there were going to be other things to feel, in relation to why he’d run off in the first place, but just now he couldn’t think that far. Merrill grabbed Varric’s hands and danced him in circle of skipping joy, but Fenris, free of his bonds was crawling towards Hawke. She was staring into the dust between her knees while Aveline murmured in her ear, stroking the arm closest to her. She shot a look at Fenris that warned him not to get too close. He stopped three feet away and tried to catch her eyes.

His movement drew her pale gaze up to his. Her eyes looked bruised, and her skin was stretched and wan. She was home behind those eyes again though, no longer the wild thing that had been accosting him looking for injuries. She looked at him, speechless, and her whole body started to tremble. 

He might have been shaking as well, “You…. You’re really here,” he said, the wonder of it still not sinking home. Her eyes closed for just a moment, as if in pain and the trembling in her limbs grew more violent. Aveline, not sure how to handle the situation disentangled herself from around Hawke and went over to their other companions.

Hawke swallowed, “Yes.”

“You came for me,” he said.

“Oh Fenris,” she said, her whole body wracked with a shudder, “Did you not have faith that I would?” The despair in her voice cut him and his emotions were a storm of guilt and relief that made him feel dizzy and sick.

“I don’t deserve your loyalty,” he ground out, “I don’t…. oh Maker Hawke after ev-“

“Shut up. Shut up, SHUT UP” she cut him off, and now her breath was heaving in her chest and her fingers clawed at her throat. He looked at her, struck dumb as she scooted backwards, curling inward on herself, clutching her chest. The other three automatically moved for her as one, and she raised her face, panting to look at them.

“Help,” she whispered. “Help me, something, something’s wrong, I can’t,” she panted, her nails digging red furrows into her skin over her breast, “help me Varric! I can’t…. I can’t breathe!” She convulsed, curling down into a ball against the ground as her breaths grew more and more labored. “I can’t see, my eyes, what is wrong with me?!” she screamed into the dust. Fenris, looked at Varric in panic, only to see perhaps the most pained and sad expression he had ever witnessed. Tears were running down his sun burned cheeks as he walked over to the woman crumpled on the ground.

Varric knelt in front of her and pulled her roughly up and against his chest. “Shh, shh now Hawke. It’s alright, you’re alright,” he smoothed her hair and rocked very gently.

A convulsion shook her again and she panted out, “Am… I… dying?”

“No,” he said, his voice smooth as honey, “No love, you’re not dying. Let it go now Hawke, let it out.” And as the last of the fight drained out of her, the dams of her control broke loose. The tears spilled down her cheeks in a river and her breath turned into hiccupping sobs. “You’re not dying Hawke,” Varric murmured.

*************************************

Eventually her sobs quieted into sniffles, and she apologized for ruining Varric’s jacket and promised him a new one as soon as they got back to Kirkwall. Merrill, for once the most practical of the group, had run around collecting the horses as soon as it was apparent that Hawke was not in fact about to die. They mounted up, a subdued group that was aching with emotional weariness but knowing that they dare not stay here where they could be set upon at any time. Hawke, in her spectacular display of vengeance had drained nearly all her mana, and it would be some time before she was really useful in battle again. Luckily the slavers had dropped Fenris’s weapon and armor before becoming roasts, and even without Hawke they would remain formidable enough for most threats. 

They travelled swiftly thanks to the horses, with Merrill riding double behind the dwarf. It was unlikely that any pursuit would be similarly mounted, so by early in the evening they felt it would be wise to stop and make camp. Better to rest and recover their strength in case something unexpected happened, rather than let their paranoia of pursuit drive them into a situation they couldn’t handle. Camp was swiftly assembled, though Hawke was pressed down onto her bedroll whenever she tried to help. She had, after all, been the only one to do any fighting that day Varric pointed out. She would have complained except that she really was pretty tired. And more than a little embarrassed to tell the truth. Her panic at her body’s first attempt at tears she could remember was, well, in a word, humiliating.  
Varric made a stew out of potatoes and dried meat, and Merrill mixed up some kind of flat bread they baked on stones. Aveline found a spring and filled eveyone’s waterskins, then took the tack of the horses and took them down for water. Fenris gave them a quick rub down when she came back, and Merrill hobbled them neatly so they wouldn’t wander too far. Three tents went up. Food was eaten, and then, finally finished, they all collected at the edge of the campfire. There had been very little talking. Only words that facilitated their tasks and not many of those. They stared into the embers and waited, respectfully trying to give their leader a chance to get her shit back together.

Hawke finally bit the bullet, “Well, as fun as this outing has been everyone…. Let’s never do it again.” Varric and Merrill grinned. 

“Here, here,” added Aveline. Just like that, the tension was broken, and the group seemed to take a collective breath and settle back into more familiar territory.

Fenris squatted on his heels to Varric’s right, across the fire from Hawke. “I… I do not know how to thank you all.” He said quietly.

Varric shot him a grin, “Think it’s awkward trying to thank us huh? Just wait til we get back home.” A surprising warmth spread through Fenris’s chest when the dwarf said home. “Hawke here rented out the whole Red Iron company and sent them off on a ship with Rivani and Sparkles to search the ports. You should have heard him howl.”

Fenris’s eyes widened, shocked at the expense, at the mage’s involvement, at the horror that clenched in his gut of the mention of the pirate within earshot of Hawke. “Hawke… you didn’t!”  
Aveline snorted, “Of course she did. Can you imagine anything that sounds more like a Hawke plan then that?”

Merrill had settled down behind Hawke and was brushing out her hair in an effort to untangle the crazed mess it always became when her magic ran away from her. “That’s not all either,” she confided with a very serious look, “she went to the Keeper and made a formal request for assistance to the hunters of the Clan, she’ll owe them a boon now.”

“Guys I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need to hear all this,” Hawke mumbled, trying to duck down to hide her red cheeks, but Merrill’s hands in her hair were not helping.

“She had me approach the Carta, they’ve been watching all the overland routes towards Orzamar for your tattooed self. Plus the Crows.”

“The Antivan Crows?” Fenris asked in dismay, “the famous guild of assassins? I thought they just stab and poison people?? I was not aware they did tracking.”

“Er,” Hawke coughed, “well… we came to an arrangement on that front.”

“An arrangement?” his voice was suspicious.

“Yes, well, it was an emergency and all…” Hawke trailed off helplessly.

“She told them if they felt it necessary to stab and poison they had to use something that would only make you sleep, or sick, or out of your head for awhile, and all injuries had to be of a non-life threatening nature.” Aveline finished. She had not approved of that particular group of contacts and was all too happy to rat Hawke out.

“Hawke!” He exclaimed. She winced and tried for a charming smile, but Fenris was smiling at her with no hint of real recrimination. 

“After all,” she said judiciously, “it’s your own fault for haring off like that without a word. You know how my mother worries.”

“Ah, yes, Leandra can be very intimidating,” he agreed soberly. There was a universal round of nodding acknowledgement from all parties at that. 

“All right kiddies, this has been a blast, but it’s time and past time for sleep. I’ll take first watch,” Aveline said and shooed them towards the tents. Hawke disappeared in moments, and Merrill took the next tent. Varric and the elf inspected each other for a long moment.

“Why don’t I take first watch instead Aveline,” Varric said, not breaking eye contact. “I want a wee word or two with our little escapee friend here.” Aveline looked like she was about to say something, then shook her head and slipped into the larger tent that Merrill had retreated into. Varric made a sharp motion with his head and the two men stepped out of the firelight. Fenris wasn’t entirely sure what was coming, but he was more than sure he deserved it. It would be something of a relief to have someone be mad at him, all of this thin skin of camaraderie was destroying what remained of his nerves.  
“So Elf,” Varric said, hitching himself on to a boulder to be more of a height with the other man, “as far as personal lives going pear shaped I do believe you’re due some sort of prize.”

Fenris grimaced, his mind flashing back to the Hanged Man as he came down the stairs behind the pirate wench to see Hawke disappearing out the door, the panic, the guilt, the flight into the dark ending in capture by slavers and a rescue he had not expected to be forthcoming. “Yes, well,” he scrubbed his hands against his eyes, “Venhedis dwarf, what in the Maker’s name do I do now?”

“NOW you ask for advice. Where was all this good sense two weeks ago when you were busy being an idiot in only one way?”

Fenris’s lips twisted, fury bubbling up through his contrition. “That’s not helping dwarf.”

“Maybe not you, but I’ve been riding on a fucking HORSE for a week. I’m a dwarf. Dwarves don’t DO horses. I am entitled to my ration of sarcastic revenge.” He poked a thick finger against the black of Fenris’s breast plate, “YOU, are going to take it like a man. In exchange I will forgive and forget and do my best to smooth things over with the rest of the crowd, save Hawke, that’s a landmine I’m not even beginning to touch, and then we can all get back to drinking and killing bad guys and being happy and not chasing your captured ass all over Thedas. Agreed?” 

Fenris wanted to snap that he didn’t need Varric’s help. He didn’t need anyone’s help. When he realized exactly how ridiculous that would sound considering today’s events he just gave up. His shoulders slumped and his ears flattened down in dejection. “Agreed.”

“Right then,” Varric said, switching to a businesslike tone, “what the fuck was all that about with Isabela?” Fenris told him. By the end Varric was rubbing his temples. “Maker’s balls Elf. You’re like the worst enemy a person ever had, only it’s to yourself. Okay, two things and then we go back to the others and we never speak of this again…. Except when I want to fuck with you about it for general amusement purposes.” He sighed and touched Bianca for reassurance, he was too old for this shit. “One, you promise to not leave, ever, without telling one of us where you are going, why, and how long, until A, Denarius is dead and cold and B, you have gone to Hawke to sever all associations to her face. Agreed?”

A beat of silence, “Agreed.”

“Good. Number two is just a piece of advice from a man who significantly more experience in the screwed up relationship department. If you want her, even if she doesn’t want you, unless she takes a lover that isn’t you, you don’t look, you don’t think and for the Maker’s sake you don’t freaking touch anything that’s not her. Probably not even then at this point. Understand?”

A longer silence, filled with what the dwarf felt was a satisfying level of self loathing, “You are, of course, quite correct.”

“Of course I am, I’m Varric Tethras Broody. Being right is my job.” The dwarf hopped down off the rock and started walking back toward the fire. Fenris followed. He glanced at the empty tent. He took a step toward it even as his eyes were drawn across the fire to where he’d seen Hawke disappear under the canvas flap of her own. Varric watched him, expressionless. Fenris finally sighed and took another step, ducking under the flap and laying out his bedroll on the ground. He lay down and pillowed his head on one wrist while he stared at the faint flicker of firelight on the ceiling. The silence was heavy, but the events of the day were exhausting him, pulling him down towards sleep. 

Sometime later he sat up with a jerk, the sleep fleeing from his mind. He had heard something. He looked around in the darkness and barely stifled a shout of surprise to see Hawke glaring at him through a slit she’d apparently cut in the back wall of his tent. “I,” she hissed, with a deal of angry dignity, “am put out.”

He pressed one hand to his galloping chest and took a deep breath. “Well, then. Will you… come in?”

Surprise flashed across her face and she crawled through the opening she had made, “Don’t think being clever and funny is going to get you out of this.” She grumbled.

“No,” he said quietly. “I am not trying to make light of this Hawke.” They sat in the dark and stared at one another, green eyes and storm gray, and a great deal passed between them in the silence. “I would offer you my apology.” 

“I don’t want it.”

“I know Hawke, that is why no matter how hard it has been clawing at my throat I have not.”

The silence returned. 

“Do you,” she started. “Are you and Bella…”

“No,” he cut her off. There was another pause. “When a day comes where you decide whether or not you forgive me I will explain if you want. But….”

She nodded. Everything was still too raw now, it could only hurt them both. She bit her lip. Time seemed to stretch and slow around them. She should go back to her own tent now, she thought. She had just needed to see him again, to know that he was all right. She didn’t want to go though, didn’t want to be where she couldn’t see him, couldn’t confirm that he was there and safe and not dead.  
“Hawke,” he whispered, “Vivianne... I thought… if you had not come for me…” She reached out and pressed her fingertips to his lips.

“Don’t,” she whispered back, voice breaking, “oh Fenris don’t. I will always come for you. Whether you and I… it doesn’t matter. You never have to stand alone again. Please,” she choked, feeling that strange can’t-breathe-can’t-see that apparently signaled crying. She took a handful of deep breaths, calming herself, finding the cool center of her being, the Stillness of the Eye, just as her father had taught her. “Don’t leave like that again okay? Please?” She was trembling. His heart ached to look at her. 

In a moment of insane bravery he reached out and cupped her cheek. She closed her eyes and pressed against his hand. It was all the encouragement he needed. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her down into the bedroll. They lay on their sides, her forehead against his chest, arms around each others waists. She breathed in the smell of him, felt the warmth of his skin, felt his chest expand as he breathed. In the comfort of the absolute knowledge of his existence at her side she finally gave in to the dark tide of exhaustion.


End file.
